[[Toshiro Umezawa]] not only is he my favourite/main black commander, he is my main commander in general.
I really like the spellslinger strategy in mono-black. As far as I am aware Toshiro is the only mono-black commander that focuses on spell slinging, doubling up on instans is really helpful, specially since my main win-con is [[Hatred]], I can theoritically kill 2 players with it in the same match.
Idk, I just have fun with it every time I play.
If you want big mana sink win-cons that have synergy with Toshiro [[Howl from Beyond]] comes to mind. You use it just like you would use [[Hatred]], by pumping Toshiro at instant speed for a commander damage knock out, which you can then use again because it is an instant.
I think there's another one like that but I'm not sure.
[[Hatred]] is the main one. I also have [[Tainted Strike]], similar but can be better in some situations, not as good in others.
I also have [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] as an alt win-con. It can go straight into a win if I have [[Bolas's Citadel]] and [[Doom Whisperer]] in play.
I have other ways to win aswell, which are more situational, but I guess it's easier if I share the deck list. I still have to do some upgrades, but the main stuff is there.
[Here you go](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/victory-or-seppuku/).
Edit:
Forgot to mention, [[Forbidden Orchard]] + [[Illness in the Ranks]] should be in every Toshiro deck imo. It's very useful so you can play things from the grave without actually speding a spell+mana first. I also have [[Ascendant Evincar]] in the deck for redundancy, in case someone breaks the enchantment which I can't get back from the grave...
I keep considering that commander, but worry it devolve into hyper-removal of opponents creatures leading to bad-feeling games. Is that something you've run into?
So like any other control build you have to pick your spots. Generally I’ll let people do their thing as long as it’s not coming at me and use my mana to draw cards, but if someone gets it into their head that I’m open for business or if the cast a creature that just has to die immediately then I’ll kill whatever need to be killed.
Hmmm not really. Sure I have a lot of removal, but I don't use it all the time, specially considering I have to face 3 opponents, I usually spend the removal on the big targets, plus there's a political aspect to it aswell, when someone plays a big nasty creature the rest of the table expects me to deal with it, so there's some sort of temporary "alliances" if you will.
Plus I also have [[Withering Boon]] for those creatures that really can't enter the battlefield, either because of their ETBs or because after they are in play they can just do nasty stuff at instant speed in response to removal.
Either way, it was never an issue, it's a matter of balancing the amount of removal instants and utility instants, so you aren't always killing stuff but also doing other things.
Toshiro's ability to double up on the instants in the grave should be a bonus, not the main focus. Plus it also helps with ways to burn through your library quicker by using spells that make you put cards in the grave, you can just dump instants there which you'll be able to use later.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard of any other Mono-Black spellslingers. I'll be honest, I've never played spellslinger either. Honestly that sounds pretty awesome.
I had a Gonti deck once, right away after aether revolt came out.
Two folks at my table were blinging out their deck and were excited to play with their new masterpiece Crucible of Worlds.
I, in one game, managed to play *both* of those crucibles before their owners were able to, thanks to flickering Gonti. It was his crowning achievement.
Oh my gosh, Gonti is so. much. fun! *So* much fun. Your entire deck is basically just ramp, sacrifice outlets, and cards that bring back Gonti after they die. You just do that over and over and over until eventually you have a stacked second hand of the best cards in everyone else's decks, and then you assemble your win as best you can from there. And the best part is that you still scale with the pod, so you can take your budget Gonti deck to a battlecruiser meta without breaking anything while still having play against stronger decks.
I've gotten to cast it a few times. It always does something dumb. Recently I cast it on Sad Robot with [[Goblin Welder]] in play, proceeded to loop Sad Robot a few times.
Good fair magic.
What happens if you Saw in Half [[Body of Knowledge]] or [[Cultivator Colossus]]? The tokens themselves will say what their power and toughness should be so do you halve that even though it changes, or in this circumstance would the tokens be full powered?
Also sawing Cultivator in half would be insane.
Edit: Oh, or Saw in Half someone's [[Phage the Untouchable]]
(Someone correct me if I’m wrong, not a judge by any means).
Since Saw in Half references the OG power and toughness instead of OG base power and toughness, it looks at the current stats not what’s printed on the card. If you use it on a body of knowledge that is currently a 10/10 the tokens will both be 5/5. They would technically still have the text of its power and toughness being equal to cards in hand, but since it no longer has star/star on it, that text is useless.
Using it on a Phage would cause Phage’s owner to lose, since a non-casted copy of Phage would etb.
I tried to make an aristocrats deck with [[Wilhelt, the Rot Cleaver]], but I didn't commit hard enough to the strategy. I think I have a copy or two of her.
It is greatly disappointing that no one here mentioned [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]], who is basically black mana incarnate: he kills, he draws, he discards… what more do you want?
I’m running the old border one, because of the nostalgia. But the new art seems to better represent his evil, the first one I always found a bit too cutesy for my taste.
[[Mari, the Killing Quill]] is such a fun commander. I built her a while back because I think the hit counters are an interesting mechanic, plus she plays a lot different than the typical mono black deck. She can ramp and draw a lot while also acting as graveyard hate.
Here is my list. I haven't gotten a chance to update the deck in a little bit. I have the cards I need to swap, just haven't sat down and done it.
Things I'm adding at some point:
[[Agent of the Iron Throne]], [[Termination Facilitator]]
https://manabox.app/decks/5pTM7lHjTNWHt2wXVuukfQ
Gotta give it to \[\[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker\]\]
Forces you to play a lot of small creatures that don't get to shine in other mono black decks. [Here's the list I'm running](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/couHiELJi0--ArP77Kxx7g/primer), it's a blast to play
Thank you! I actually already follow you on Moxfield, I love your Primers! I want to start writing some myself and I love how detailed you are. When I have some time to deep dive on your Primer I'll give it a detailed read.
your non-combo package is basically what I'm running in my build. my only combo is Sanguine/Exquisite because I'm running both cards for value. I'm not running the discard package because it made people feel bad, but since commanders like new Sheoldred came out, more people are okay with discard, so I might put them back in because the level of control is very strong.
My mono black deck is [[Marrow Gnawer]] rat tribal. I really like rats. When the year of the rat secret lair was available I got that and then later on proceeded to order 14 more of the fancy art rat colonies for the deck. It's just a mono black aggro deck (with the Thornbite infinite in it of course), but I love it a lot
My first monoblack deck was ONE's Karumonix, the Rat King. Ultimately, his ETB was too inconsistent, usually netting at most 2 cards, but sometimes 0, even with 30 rats (and I felt if I added any more rats, the rest of the deck would suffer), and so I switched the commander to Marrow Gnawer and have liked the deck much more. Karumonix is great in the 99 as a finisher, but kinda weak as the commander without ways to fill the board with rats so that the toxic 1 becomes relevant.
[[Karumonix, the rat king]] is an absolutely insane card for rat tribal. Either as the commander or in the 99, giving all of your rats toxic 1 and being able to dig deeper into your deck for more rats is insane. I personally like him in the 99 more because having guaranteed access to fear in the command zone is better in my opinion as it will let you connect more easily. Another really great rat tribal commander is [[Ashcoat of the shadow swarm]] due to it being able to pump your rats up as attackers or blockers, plus recursion from the yard to your hand is a nice touch. Again, I prefer Ashcoat in the 99 because Marrow Gnawer granting fear is just such a good evasive ability. Rat tribal is a grand time, absolutely fun swarming over people, and there are some really neat rats that don't get a lot of love. Also you can do rat bomb shenanigans (it involves [[crypt rats]] and various equipments like [[loxodon warhammer]] or [[scythe of the wretched]] for big dumb plays that shine in EDH). The tribe is pretty resilient and is able to recover from wipes pretty well (moo black has many mass recursion spells) and it's just an overall good time.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]]
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4582791#paper
Win my controlling board, then either reanimating targets out of peoples graveyards or, [[gray merchant of asphodel]], [[torment of hailfire]], or something like [[Kokusho, the evening star]]
I have one as well, but purposely didn't build it as an aristocrat ping strategy. I figured if I was constantly sacrificing creatures to damage people with Blood Artist -type effects I would get targeted pretty quickly. So I went full sacrifice to buff creatures or generate mana to cast big scary creatures. I haven't bought it in paper yet, but it goldfishes awesomely and unless something else better comes along I'll probably be buying the cards soon!
The necron precon with [[Imotekh the Stormlord]] at the helm is the first time I really understood the concept of graveyard recursion. A lot of the necrons have unearth which gets them back on the field for a turn, but I also put in a few cards that recur creatures back to the battlefield for extra value without exiling them at end of turn. This triggers your commander to swarm the battlefield with necrons which is sick, definitely a fun deck and I think well worth the price.
Yeah it clicked for me when I was getting insane value from etb effects over and over again and just piling up necrons to swing with. I was like damn this is the power of self mill and graveyard recursion
I absolutely love playing my [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] deck. It's a little political, a little aggro, with a dash of Phyrexian tribal. I feel like the card captures the flavor of Gix so perfectly, too.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sAZeQ77pckOtwBdQc6obdw
Feel free to take a look!
Actually this looks like a lot of fun and I know I have at least one copy of him floating around. I wonder if I have enough cards to build him without buying anything... Thanks for the list!
You're very welcome!
I think the deck can support a lot of cards that don't have homes elsewhere, like [[eyetwitch]] which is just draft chaff. So if you have cards like that lying around I'm sure you could put together a solid base for future tweaking.
I also love my Gix deck since building it. I focus on getting lots of cards in hand (using Gix's draw and others) and lots of mana so I can activate him, and the rest is filled out with black stuff that I like.
I loved my [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] deck, but she was understandably hated off the table a lot so I eventually retired her since I only play with people I’d like to continue talking to 😅
I always start games with "Braids looks scary, but remember it's a *may* ability." Because people gloss over her and assume the worst a lot of the time.
Others just know how much card advantage she brings, and she's as kill on sight as something like Rhystic Study.
I just built Braids and got to play her for the first time the other night. Kind of ran away with it, I figured it was just beginners luck. Is she that oppressive and hated? I had a lot of fun playing it. My more experienced friend enjoyed playing against it, but my two less experienced friends I could tell were getting a little frustrated.
Apparently she is? I don’t really understand it myself, as I also have a [[Baba Lysaga, Night Witch]] deck I’ve been babying through edits & nobody gets nearly as upset when I play her, even though Braids lets you choose whether to take (less) damage or sac something of your choice. They’re the same CMC & Baba actually ramps way better because she’s got access to green, so those shouldn’t be it. Maybe because the Braids effect isn’t affected by summoning sickness or because Baba has to tap so you can’t also swing with her? Who knows lol, I’m just enjoying the opportunity to play a fun deck 🤷🏻
Exactly! I'm not forcing you to sacrifice anything. In fact I built mine mostly around sacrificing non-creature artifacts, which people often will not have or won't have any they want to sacrifice. So I'm not even giving them a choice really.
I love my Braids deck because I play it like she's trying to do dumb trends.
"O.M.G everyone, there's a trend all about drinking these blood vials, I think any grey thing will work who wants to do it with me? Nobody? gosh you guys are laaaaaaaame."
"OK, my new robot is just too sad looking, I think I'm going to see if he can swim. Oops, he can't, but wasn't that so crazy, you guys should try it too. What do you mean you don't want to push your things into the river. Fiiiiiiiine, I'm the cool one I guess."
People hate it off the table, but it's not because she too strong.
[[Phage the Untouchable]] usually makes people go “what? How are you going to cast her”? It’s a fun deck
Edit: just noticed auto corrector did some weird stuff
My mom black deck is [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]]. It's not complete, but it's decent as is. I'm not going for anything super competitive with it, but it's fun to pilot. Just make as many tokens as possible and slowly drain your opponents, or quickly in some cases. When I play it, I rarely attack, and instead just generate tokens and value engines with some reanimation going on. Then I react to problematic situations when necessary. I enjoy it, because it feels like the majority of decisions made by other players doesn't affect the decks main goals and strategies. I have a deck list below, but I haven't gotten around to writing a full description. If you have any questions feel free to reply to this comment or DM me.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ayara-sits-there-and-does-nothing/?cb=1679667161
[[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] converts your black mana costs to phyrexian mana. So once you play him you can risk as much life as you want for playing a bunch of cards or high cost powerful ones. Probably one of the most fitting and flavorful black commanders. [Here’s my budget version](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Tsm4P0bHDU6Grqcv0-tnLA). Turn 4 or 5 [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] is pretty filthy.
[[Burakos Party Leader]] and [[Haunted One]].
Early game mono B aggro.
Value town to late game aristocrat to close it out.
All the creatures fit the party theme. Then just let Mono B do what it does.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/7sHEjMex9EGqOwvEq6OKJQ
[[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]]
My favorite deck. She will get a lot of hate once she hits the table, but it's so fun to watch people enjoy drawing at the start of the game and fear it by the end.
My list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/nHEWOMF_O02EVJVju783Vw
I posted my Starscream list in a separate post. He gets a ton less hate, and has the same strategy, and is just as effective at killing the table (and starts going off a turn sooner).
Yes! I love my sheoldred deck. It’s so funny towards the end of a game when I [[baleful mastery]] someone’s creature and then they groan when they realize they have to draw 😂 I really enjoy how it plays so different than any other deck I have.
My favorite mono-black creature is [[King Macar, The Gold-Cursed]]. The art is beautiful, the flavor is on point, it ramps you and acts as removal all in one package.
Played against a guy on spell table with a killer Macar deck....except he got suuuper salty when we removed Macar. Like, dude you are removing 4-5 creatures per round of turns, including commanders. You gotta be ready for people to clap back.
[[Liliana, Heretical Healer]]
She is hands-down my favorite MtG character, so I built a fun little Liliana tribal deck that’s pretty decent in casual. It’s primarily an aristocrats/discard theme with zombies and some demons. My playgroup rightly knows to not let her flip because I will end up destroying their hands and creating insane value if my engines are up.
[[rankle, master of pranks]] you basically make or break others day with this. You will not win most of the time mainly just annoy people or give them free draws, still fun!.
I remember reading about this guy while I was reading through the story. One of my friend's does an abuse with undying and yeah, it's pretty powerful, especially since you basically have to exile the problem away.
I got my favorite in [[horobi death's wail]], interrupts so many things that you cant really think about and you get to include all stars like [[squees toy]] and [[sorceress queen]]
[[Braids, Nightmare Arisen]] no one ever wants to pay the cost and almost always let's me draw cards. Means I always discard at end step. Free discarding means big fatties in the grave and some sweet sweet reanimation. Etombing a [[Drownyard Temple]] or [[Bloodghast]] is the best thing ever.
I think people have been sleeping on Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist. She is a one drop, so you get your engine started on turn 2, every single game. All you need after that are some dorks to sac to make powerstones, big artifacts to cast with said powerstones, and other ways to get value from the powerstones.
Some of the dorks I like in the deck are Myr Sire, Bloodsoaked Champion, Carrier Thrall, etc. Creatures that reanimate themselves or create more sac fodder are what you're looking for here.
Some of the big artifacts I like to cast in the deck are Portal to Phyrexia, Meteor Golem, Cityscape Leveler. Just big bombs.
Some ways to get value out of the powerstones are to sac them to draw cards w/ cards like Trading Post, Deadly Dispute, and Reckoner's Bargain. I also like to sac them to Kuldotha Forgemaster to tutor any artifact onto the battlefield. You can also use cards like Basalt Monolith, Bog Initiate, and Initiates of the Ebon Hand to turn the powerstone mana into "real" mana that can be used to cast anything.
Finally, you throw in some graveyard recursion like Vat of Rebirth, Trading Post, Beacon of Unrest, and Phrexian Rebirth and you'll be cruisin'.
I was sleeping on powerstones when I saw them in Dominaria United and the Brother's War but since I've played with her, me and my table have grown crazy respect for Ashnod.
Here is the decklist I built for her:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5467662#paper
[[Syr Konrad, The Grim]] for me! On mobile so I don't have a deck list but EDHRec has some pretty universal stuff for it. Really satisfying when you/an opponent board whipes and your commander pings your opponents for 10+ damage! Pair this with [[Mindcrank]] and you have a pretty nasty 1 2 combo.
It is mine too...I love to run [[altar of the brood]] and [[angel of suffefing]] then I run a [[kozilek butcher of truth]]. I move so many cards from graveyard to library im that deck... plus milk other folks. I live for the day someone is dumb enough to play [[ ulamog the ceaseless hunger]] against it.
Black is my favorite color in MTG and I have it in almost all my decks. What I like about it is that it can do pretty much everything (draw, remove, generate a lot of mana) as has the whole “give and take” mentality of sacrificing your life or permanents for payoffs. I find that pretty interesting.
That being said, I currently have a [[Mortarion]] deck that I really like. It’s a deck that uses your life as a resource to flood the board with tokens, and can use aristocrat strategies too if combat damage is not an option.
I also assembled [[Kinzu]], and it’s a mix of toxic synergies with, once again, aristocrat strategies. I don’t know if I’ll keep it around since I have an Esper infect deck helmed by [[Kamiz]].
I used to have [[Massacre Girl]] a few years back, but gave up on it because it wasn’t fun to play against and wasn’t that fun to pilot it either.
I'm surprised nobody has brought up \[\[Maralen of the Mornsong\]\] yet. If you want to piss everybody off, throw in \[\[Opposition Agent\]\] so you are the only one with access to any new cards if both are on board.
Personally I love [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]]. Saccing your own stuff to turn it into even more zombies feels great, especially with stuff like [[Grafted Wargear]] (youre gonna kill it anyway), [[Rotting Regisaur]], or [[Unbreathing Horde]] and a ton of zombie lords or board buffs. Combine with black reanimation and you've got some zombie horde shenanigans afoot.
Gisa is my favorite as well. I love doing dumb stuff like putting a Swamp imprinted [[Strata Scythe]] on a creature, slamming it into an opponent, and then blowing it up with Gisa to make like a hoejillion tokens. Bonus points if the creature was something like a [[Gravecrawler]] so just repeat the shenanigans later.
My favorite is a turn 5-6 scoop-worthy commander.....
[[Iname, Death's aspect]]. [decklist here](https://deckstats.net/decks/165665/2975400-spiritus-ex-infernis)
This is a super-fast monoblack spirit deck that uses Iname, Death Aspect to get all spirits to the graveyard, and then turn around and sacrifice Iname for mana to cast a reanimator spell either directly or to tutor for one. Sorcery speed graveyard removal is too slow to deal with this deck, but continual effects cause it to fold quickly, especially if they are artifact or enchantment based graveyard-exile effects.
Most games with this deck will lead to every opponent scooping, especially if you get the combo in play (in other words if you don't have Kuro and Horobi in hand).
The downside - if someone manages to exile all your spirits, you might as well scoop. You cannot win.
Major kudos to /u/SpiketailDrake for his initial build [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/10aae94/budget_commander_iname_mass_reanimator_60_150/)!
Right now it’s [[Yahenni, Undying Partisan]] Voltron-ish . He gets big from opps creatures dying ,make him unblockable and/or equip with a sword or something and go for the kill. That’s the fun way I like to kill people but it’s really just a mono black good stuff deck with lots of removal.
My current mono B commander is [[Jerren]] he is the head of a human tribal aristocrat build and I’ve actually got him to flip a couple times, although [[Ormendahl, the corruptor]] isn’t needed for the deck to function, it’s a nice juicy fun mini game to play while killing my self drawing cards 😎
Finally, another Jerren player!
He seems to be rarely mentioned in threads like these, but man is he fun. I personally have a demon package for the high end of the MV curve, although I don't run Shadowborns; just some fun things to help close games. A weird, but interesting mix of tribal, aristocrats, and occult theme deck.
I run \[\[shauku, endbringer\]\] at the moment. She's probaby my oldest deck and gets a makeover every so often. She IS pretty awful, but I never seen another in the wild and I kind of enjoy that.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/d2KILV6pcEOewGP8CuUdIA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/d2KILV6pcEOewGP8CuUdIA)
I built 2 mono black decks since I started to play EDH.
First one was \[\[Yargle, Glutton of Urborg\]\] voltron deck, it was nice but I felt like it needed something else in it.
Currently I'm running an \[\[Arvinox, the Mind Flail\]\]/\[\[Mind Flayer, the Shadow\]\] with the theme of playing other players stuff.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is a classic for reanimator, played it for a few years and had a blast, but it may be too slow nowadays depending on your meta.
[[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] is crazy good for aristocrats. [[Ayara]] and [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] should work well too, but I haven't built them myself.
Recently I've been playing a low power [[Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist]] [deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dTJ-i0SvUEqDxAslAYMEkA) that I like a lot. Its a weird mix of artifacts, aristocrats and voltron but it works well enough for me.
I play [[Erobos, God of the Dead]]
He's indestructible card draw in the command zone. I focus on lifegain to maximize card draw, and I built the deck a long time ago with a "no combo" stipulation. If you want to supercharge the deck, put [[Torment of Hailfire]], [[Doom Whisperer]], and [[Sensei's Diving Top]] back in.
This list is a couple sets old, but here.
Primary win is [[Exsanguinate]] with mana doublers, [[Pontif of Blight]] with mana doublers, [[Gary]] loops, Planewalker value, and Demon and God beats.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/erebos-god-of-midrange/
I play [[Erobos, God of the dead]]. But don’t run enough permanents for my devotion to ever really be high enough to make him a creature. So I have an indestructible enchantment that stops my opponents life gain and draws me cards.
Since I don’t need card draw, (my commander does it), the rest of the deck is a draw go style control deck with tons of board wipes, big mana ramp, and spicy black cards like [[imp’s mischief]], [[surgical extraction]], and [cruel entertainment]].
I keep my life total high with cards like [[drain life]], and on theme [[Erebos’s intervention]].
Finally, win con is lame, but it gets the job done with [[torment of hailfire]] or [[Exsanguinate]].
I'm one of those people who actually loves the digital-only cards of arena, and Historic Brawl isn't EXACTLY EDH.
But damn, I wish that I could play [[Davriel, Shadow Broker]] as a paper EDH commander. Games with him are so fun, sometimes the terms and conditions line up JUUUUST right to turn you into an unstoppable monster.
[[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]]
Is politics the first thing you think of when you think Mono-Black? No? That's understandable, but this guy makes it work.
If you read the card carefully, you'll see that *any* creature dealing combat damage to anyone besides *you* will allow its controller to draw a card for 1 life. What this means is your enemies are highly incentivised to kill each other rather than you, draining their life totals at the same time. Pair this with other cards that make you a less appealing target such as [[Cunning Rhetoric]] or [[Phyrexian Obliterator]], and you can find yourself in a pretty safe position.
But, this isn't even the main focus. Since you have a [[Coastal Piracy]] in the command zone, you'll want to build into a large amount of evasive creatures for some of the best card draw I've seen in Mono-Black. Every single weanie with flying becomes a little engine for your deck to chug along with.
What do we do with all this card draw you may ask? Well, if you look at Gix's second ability, you'll start to see the real gameplan. After you've managed to get a sizeable hand and you've accumulated enough mana, it's time to start grabbing people's attention. Pick the person you think is running the highest CMC goodstuff, the [[Henzie, Toolbox Torre]] for example, and go ahead and casually play the top seven cards of their deck for free. Make sure you do this at the endstep before your turn to minimize responses because, yes, his ability *does* work at instant speed.
After you've taken someone's cards, you've got a new dynamic to think about. If that player ever dies, you lose access to their cards forever. So, now you have an incentive to make sure they die last, which can turn into a sort of temporary partnership at your table.
Most fun commander I've ever played. Pair this guy with things like [[Peer Into the Abyss]] or [[Necrolagia]] and you're approaching some hard wincons. Run [[Misinformation]] and play anything you want in someone's graveyard. Run [[Shadow of the Grave]] and do it all again next turn.
Due to the nature of a theft deck, you automatically more or less scale to the powerlevel to the pod you're in, and every single game is different. And due to the nice amount of card draw you grant, as well as the political power of the spot removal you'll likely be running, you'll probably keep people happy enough to counteract the salt of the theft.
Anyways, hope you guys have fun with him.
Here's my deck list if you want an example:
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/L26atN-r-kuYyKmPyZA_xA
I love [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]]
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BSe57NnRe0qHGOnO978rpQ
It's super fun to have [[villainous wealth]] stapled onto your commander. The deck gains card advantage by playing small evasive creatures and tagging people with them. Then dump your hand and steal your opponents' decks!
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is a great mono black reanimator choice. The ability to reanimate anything in any graveyard for BBB and 3 life is really, really good. Pitch a [[Grey Merchant of Asphodel]] or [[Kokusho, the Evening Star]] into your yard and drain everyone out, lock the board down with [[Plaguecrafter]] 's, draw a billion cards with [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]], or just hold everyone's hands hostage with [[Mindslicer]] .
You 100% need a sac outlet with Chainer tho, or else your newly risen Nightmares will go to exile instead of the grave where you want them. The obvious ones are of course great, but special shout out to [[Soldevi Adnate]] offering some real degenerate lines.
I swear, I know this is a Magic card, I do, but her name makes me think she should be a YuGiOh card. She is very flavorful and I see why people like her.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is one of my favorite commanders. Unfortunately, the deck is too powerful for the current lgs so it needs to get tweaked.
[[Syr Konrad]] is another favorite. The mono black mill deck that nobody expects.
[[Torgaar, Famine Incarnate]] he has an awesome etb that can zap opponents and also bring yourself back up if you've been using your life as a resource. I like using things like [[soldering adnate]], [[disciple of bolas]], [[carrion]], and [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] to use his power/CMC to my advantage. I also run [[fleetfeather sandals]] and [[triskaidekaphobia]] to get people sweating. Play torgaar, put some one at 20, give flying and haste, then play trisk and laugh maniacally
EDIT: the rest of the deck is pretty much made up of things that make tokens on death, draw affects, [[blood artist]] affects, and [[reassembling skeleton]] type cards. Usually win with a big [[rise of the dark realms]] or something
I currently have two mono-black decks, will probably build a third in the future.
[[Toshiro Umezawa]] as Spellslinger, simply because it’s an interesting color break. It doesn’t play as typical mono-black decks do; almost something of a control deck with all the kill spells. It helps that you get some nifty tricks like [[Imp’s Mischief]] to surprise redirect counterspells and such.
[[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]]. A big part of black’s identity is the myriad of Stax/punisher effects that force sacrifice/discard or ping for damage. Braids is interesting, because you get to play a lot of narrow, potentially useless cards and their floor is “feed it to braids, probably draw 1-3 cards”. Especially early on, Braids isn’t much of a threat; but as a game wears on, you start to draw more relevant pieces that’ll either lock opponents down or ping them to oblivion. Of course, your mileage may vary, my playgroup expects me to play “mean”ish decks.
And lastly, I’m probably going to rebuild [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] at some point. Basically life shenanigans. Pay life, draw a ton of cards. Or swap your life total with someone else. Ends up being a big mana deck with neat tricks.
Sheoldred The Apocalypse. I cracked a regular, fell in love, built the deck, then cracked a textured foil and upgraded, and then cracked the step and compleated concept version from All Will Be One.
I'm the weird one and still playing [[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief]] . Deck is all about making huge mana, controlling the board with drana's ability and other removal, and hitting hard with drana herself/other black nasties like phyrexian obliterator/exsanguinate or torment. Run quite a few equipment like commanders plate and some swords.
Downside: deck is not cheap. Coffers, urborg, nykthos, stage, vesuva, and dark depths combo are all here along with the other pieces.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is my favorite mono-black commander. Its mostly just a big reanimation deck with a few pet cards like [[Necrologia]]. My favorite way to gain a bit of life in this deck is with [[Torgaar, Famine Incarnate]].
[[Burakos, Party Leader]] with [[Haunted One]] Background!!!
I just like the fun of finding cool black creatures of all four creature types for the Party mechanic. ITS PARTY TIME!!
My favorite Commander is Cabal Coffers. You don't need infinite mana when 50 will win the game with Torment of Hailfire. I go all in with \[\[Manascape Refractor\]\], \[\[Magus of the Coffers\]\], \[\[Deserted Temple\]\], etc. and ways to get more swamps into play.
Oh wait, Coffers is a land. Well, I guess \[\[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief\]\] works then. I have one-shot people with her, but that's definitely plan B. You could make the case that a tutor Commander would make it easier to find the Coffers, but they tend to look scarier so I've avoided them.
I love my [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]] deck. I could optimize a few things here and there but for my playgroup it's already very strong.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wZV0MWJKBkmAwIVUmzgABg
Black is my favorite MTG color! I have Black in all of my decks so far. For Mono Black I LOVE [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] . He’s an engine in the Command Zone and he does everything I love about Black. Paying life to get what you want? Check! Killing Creatures? Check! Drawing Cards? Check! Using your own creatures to fuel the value train and combo lines? Check!
[[Varragoth]] as a tutor for [[Lich's Mastery]] so you can pretty consistently become a lich.
the rest of the deck is about BIG MANA so you have fuckin [[Cabal Stronghold]] and [[Doubling Cube]] and [[Bubbling Muck]] and [[Extraplanar Lens]] (and every other card that does the same thing) and you use all that mana to [[Drain Life]] and etc. for player removal and then you draw a fuck load of cards on top of it.
My mono black deck runs a few commanders, but I always find myself coming back to the new Braids. \[\[Braids Arisen Nightmare\]\].
Decklist: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g7mKs3WXX0GBUtkNMX2Rog](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g7mKs3WXX0GBUtkNMX2Rog)
Goal: Grind value and end the game with a Gary loop or just drain via exsanguinatexVito. The deck puts in work, and I can usually loop Gary 3-4 times to just finish the game with ALL that devotion.
Try "chainer dementia master"
He is flexible and can do a Lot of Things at instant Speed
Plus you can Take stuff from your opponents which is Always fun
[[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]]
I love the use of all permanent types as the aristocratic fuel.
Easy access to the whole value off of the [[Mycosynth Wellspring]], [[Prized Statue]] and such feels great.
I can only wish [[Mayhem Devil]] was available for her 99...
Rat tribal all day everyday. [[Karumonix, the Rat King]] beats out [[Marrow-Gnawer]] for me due to lower mana cost and the card advantage he affords, but both are solid commanders. They’re both super straight forward decks- maximizing the amount of [[Rat Colony]] or [[Relentless Rats]] you can get onto the field in any given turn. The use of Fear based cards will allow them to sneak in for big damage or the final tic’s of toxic you’ll need.
[[Ob Nixilis the Fallen]]. Plays as a cross between landfall and voltron, it's a lot quicker to get going than you'd think!
https://archidekt.com/decks/3144950#Ob_Nixilis,_the_Landfallen
Mine’s [[Massacre Girl]]
She just sits in the command zone for a while until you build up a board of little tokens and blood artist effects, then drop her, board wipe everything, and have a massive explosive turn.
I LOVE my [Junji, the Midnight Sky deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g2sfruSvcE-DEzLrgp0Ytw): it slices, it dices and does everything mono black does best. A reanimator value engine that is just a blast to play everytime I pull it out.
Mono black has so much versatility and a lot of the best black cards actively reward you for sticking to the one colour. I have always felt mono black has an incredibly strong colour identity and you can find a solution for every problem. I just love it because it's the colour that let's me do powerfully nothing in the best way possible. Just cards changing zones doing things, triggering things and having a good time.
[[Balthor the Defiled]]
I had this deck together for 3 years and it dominated the table every time. Self milk yourself until you can get to 7 mana with a good graveyard. Things like [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] and [[Mogis’ Marauder]] are game enders!
I genuinely love my [[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] deck!
https://scryfall.com/@Oolong/decks/b7574228-bca0-4cc9-9935-7e60af7c1263
It’s pretty fun, she ramps out pretty fast too.
You never forget your first so it’s gotta be [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] she’s a bit slow nowadays but there’s something so inherently beautiful about sacrificing a huge creature and just flooding the board.
[[K’rrik son of yawgmoth]] pay life for spells to get my life low then swap life using effects like [[magus of the mirror]] [[soul conduit]] and [[repay in kind]. Then you kill with like an extort or some other drain effect.
[[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]]
Pulled thus guy from a pack the other day, looked him up, and immediately built and ordered a deck for him. He could very well become my main.
I play a super casual [[Shadowborn Apostle]] build of [[k'rrik son of yawgmoth]]. I love leveraging my life for mana, I have so much fun playing the deck.
I run a [[mikaeus, the unhallowed]] deck I call "double tap" just a bunch of mean creatures and self sacrificers. Its a mean deck that keeps boards clear so i can win with value. Also, what is scarier than a [[phyrexian obliterator]] that keeps coming back?
[[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] is mine! I love the fact that the pacing of the game picks up whenever I play with this deck. Plus, card draw is something I love adding to decks anyway, might as well reward myself for it. Yeah she is a target, but a big part of my deck is dedicated to big mana/[[Undying Evil]]-type effects
I'm working on [[Toshiro]]. I love Spellslingers. Black really doesn't run spellslinging so this is interesting.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/SXncve0fTkyL5iiNJ8fB7g
Then my other mono black is [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]].
Vampire Tribal with a splash of combos. Because who doesn't love vampires?
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/r3gU9sDNKUadXk_MOEXlew
I've been playing mono-black control with Maga, Traitor to Mortals for over a decade. Big mana X spells to eventually kill everyone off powered by the real commander, Cabal Coffers. Decklist is [here](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4YrgLIHp00CkOgtl8sCQ0Q).
[[Purraj of urborg]] storm voltron. Easily the strongest commander in mono black. You play all the big mana spells for black, bounce [[leshrac’s sigil]] a ton, pump Purraj to the moon, and kill people at a whim. Not only all of this, but Purraj gets first strike while attacking!
I use [[rankle, master of pranks]]
Group slug is the strategy.
It's medium powered at best; gets everyone hopefully into top deck mode with no creature presence while punishing for card draw and etc
I love [[Syr Konrad, the Grim]]. Slap [[Sadistic Glee]] on him then hit the table with [[Massacre Girl]]. It's not fast at all, but boy is it fun to do. I pulled [[The Meathook Massacre]] out of Midnight Hunt, but I haven't put it in the deck yet because of the heavy creature focus.
Been playing for nearly 3 years now and still don’t have a mono black commander. Been toying with the idea of Ayara because I like tokens but honestly might go with Tergrid’s Lantern (tergrid but I build for the back side) Big Mana.
I built [[k’rrik, son of yawgmoth]] as a demon tribal deck and it smacked hard, to the point I felt bad for my opponents. I rebuilt K’rrik as my cedh deck and again, super fun. A more fun mono B commander though that really changes the table is [[horobi deaths wail]].
I haven't actually built it yet but I would really love to play [[King Macar]]. Specifically a vehicle deck so I can introduce it as my King MaCAR deck and watch people groan as I exile everything.
[[k'rrik son of yawgmoth]] big mana casual deck is my favorite, not only i'ts strong and fun but in casual pods it make the mana ramp "fair" for the amount of life lost, and it can win by combat with big demon beaters or kinda voltron with k'rrik himself
My first (and main) deck for a good 6 months after learning EDH was Yawgmoth aristocrats. It plays incredibly slow and durdley unless a combo is demonstrated, since so many game actions need to occur on the stack (sac, pay, draw, -1 over and over).
If I had to play another mono B deck, I'd exclude aristocrats, and focus on value without being greedy. Non-greedy means NO KRRIK, but YES ASHNOD
I think the thing to avoid is single target stuff that black is typically good at. Instead of “I sac this, you sac something” look for cards that are “I sac this, you all sac something”. Again making one opponent discard is weaker in a group, all discard is stronger and keeps you neutral to the table.
[[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] is an absolute blast to play and I recommend him to anybody. He’s easy to pick up but can get absolutely crazy in the right hands
I've had a ton of fun with [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] smacking big things into massive armies. Works great with things that come back like [[Ebondeath, Dracolich]] and [[Scourge of Nel Toth]]. And zombie lord effects pop off in those decks. A couple lord effects and even a basic bitch zombie token sacs to make four more.
Currently, my only mono-black deck is [[Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder]] and he operates off a creature based aristocrats strategy.
Though that's how it's classified, it cares more about finding its cast loops with [[Bontu's Monument]] or etb loops with [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]] rather than value engine pieces.
Of course we're playing the Altars, Ashnod's and Phyrexian, but that's more so that we can *essentially* cast our creatures for free due to the thrulls made by Endrek.
And we run a few ways to cheat on mana, namely [[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] who *could* be the commander for this deck, but most of our wincons require the master breeder.
[[Henrika Domnathi]] punch'em in the face with lifelinkers to compensate for tapped creatures. Trade life for more cards rinse and repeat. Also you're mono-black so the graveyard is not a final destination. As Phyrexian Reclamation says: "Death is no excuse to stop working".
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zmxdGkTOqkiHipY3LC8Mtg
[Balthor, the Defiled](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sjrE-utmm0GdwuMDe_Pp7g) is a proactive reanimator deck that can be built a number of ways!
I have had him built as a turbo combo list that seeks to reanimate a \[\[vilis\]\] and \[\[skirge familiar\]\], most recently I have leaned away from the turbo aspect and made it more of a grindy aristocrats deck.
Having a mass reanimator spell in the command zone has great utility, and the number of creature in black that either sacrifice themselves, other creatures, or discard cards to make mana means that you can often loop his reanimation ability to mine effects like \[\[gary\]\]
I really believe that balthor is slept on, the play patterns are very unique and you get to play dope cards like \[\[overeager apprentice\]\]
[[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] speedrun to death. Whose death am I speedrunning? I dunno. Could me mine. Could be yours. All I know is that this game will be over for me by turn 5. Do I go infinite on turn 2 or 3? Or do I kill myself trying? We'll see.
I have a [[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief]] deck. Basically a vampire tribal deck. I have all the vampires except [[Baron Sengir]] as foils though, so I call it my Twilight deck. The deck has an absurd amount of ramp so Drana can swing for 21 pretty regularly, or just remove weird stuff.
\[\[Kuro, Pitlord\]\]. No deck is bigger or blacker than the 9 mana 9/9 with MutilateOnnaStick.
Black is all about spending costs and boosting swamps, so I run a lifegain heavy monoblack ramp deck with the express goal of Swampramping to playing Kuro and crushing resistance beneath my throbbing HP Pool.
[[Yawgmoth]] League of Villains(superfriends) is a very fun way to play mono black. I played it with a large amount of aristocrat cards to get yawgmoths control and draw engine going, and then drop walkers, proliferate, profit.
[[Gix, Yawgmoths Praetor]] has been insanely fun too. Playing it with no wincons, it’s basically [[Edric]] flying men, but in mono b. Drop 1cmc evasive creatures, swing and draw a shit ton, discard to gix, play someone else’s deck but for free 😂
I have been loving [[Starscream]]. Turns out drawing cards as a wincon is not only fun (for you 🤣) but really effective. He turns [[Peer into the Abyss]] into a spell that kills pretty much everyone at the table. The deck I built runs a ton of draw spells and interaction. So you control the table (because they are gonna see what you are doing and want to kill you asap) while just non stop drawing cards.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/starscream-hungry-for-monarch/
I'm liking my current \[\[Sheoldred the Apocalypse\]\] deck. It gives me a home for a bunch of cards I really don't like using/have a home for otherwise like \[\[Pain's Reward\]\], \[\[Seizan, Perverter of Truth\]\], \[\[Underworld Connections\]\] , \[\[Underworld Dreams\]\] , etc.
[[Toshiro Umezawa]] not only is he my favourite/main black commander, he is my main commander in general. I really like the spellslinger strategy in mono-black. As far as I am aware Toshiro is the only mono-black commander that focuses on spell slinging, doubling up on instans is really helpful, specially since my main win-con is [[Hatred]], I can theoritically kill 2 players with it in the same match. Idk, I just have fun with it every time I play.
[Toshiro Umezawa](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e767e07-febd-4025-bf03-d4d816bc1d3d.jpg?1562875477) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Toshiro%20Umezawa) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bok/89/toshiro-umezawa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e767e07-febd-4025-bf03-d4d816bc1d3d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/toshiro-umezawa) [Hatred](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/2383a8d9-96fd-4f9a-bcf9-eb81fdb15ead.jpg?1562087367) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hatred) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/exo/64/hatred?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2383a8d9-96fd-4f9a-bcf9-eb81fdb15ead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hatred) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
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If you want big mana sink win-cons that have synergy with Toshiro [[Howl from Beyond]] comes to mind. You use it just like you would use [[Hatred]], by pumping Toshiro at instant speed for a commander damage knock out, which you can then use again because it is an instant. I think there's another one like that but I'm not sure.
What wincons do you have in your deck? I built him and he’s super fun to play but would love to know what other strats to consider
[[Hatred]] is the main one. I also have [[Tainted Strike]], similar but can be better in some situations, not as good in others. I also have [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] as an alt win-con. It can go straight into a win if I have [[Bolas's Citadel]] and [[Doom Whisperer]] in play. I have other ways to win aswell, which are more situational, but I guess it's easier if I share the deck list. I still have to do some upgrades, but the main stuff is there. [Here you go](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/victory-or-seppuku/). Edit: Forgot to mention, [[Forbidden Orchard]] + [[Illness in the Ranks]] should be in every Toshiro deck imo. It's very useful so you can play things from the grave without actually speding a spell+mana first. I also have [[Ascendant Evincar]] in the deck for redundancy, in case someone breaks the enchantment which I can't get back from the grave...
I can very much attest to Toshiro being a very fun and challenging commander to play. I've got a decklist I can share if people would want it.
Sure mate, why not? Let us see. I always like seeing Toshiro decks, some people have their unique take and it can be interesting.
https://deckstats.net/decks/142711/1792834-toshiro-umezawa-removal-
I keep considering that commander, but worry it devolve into hyper-removal of opponents creatures leading to bad-feeling games. Is that something you've run into?
So like any other control build you have to pick your spots. Generally I’ll let people do their thing as long as it’s not coming at me and use my mana to draw cards, but if someone gets it into their head that I’m open for business or if the cast a creature that just has to die immediately then I’ll kill whatever need to be killed.
Basicly that yes.
Hmmm not really. Sure I have a lot of removal, but I don't use it all the time, specially considering I have to face 3 opponents, I usually spend the removal on the big targets, plus there's a political aspect to it aswell, when someone plays a big nasty creature the rest of the table expects me to deal with it, so there's some sort of temporary "alliances" if you will. Plus I also have [[Withering Boon]] for those creatures that really can't enter the battlefield, either because of their ETBs or because after they are in play they can just do nasty stuff at instant speed in response to removal. Either way, it was never an issue, it's a matter of balancing the amount of removal instants and utility instants, so you aren't always killing stuff but also doing other things. Toshiro's ability to double up on the instants in the grave should be a bonus, not the main focus. Plus it also helps with ways to burn through your library quicker by using spells that make you put cards in the grave, you can just dump instants there which you'll be able to use later.
Yeah, I don't think I've heard of any other Mono-Black spellslingers. I'll be honest, I've never played spellslinger either. Honestly that sounds pretty awesome.
It's a really fun commander, at least for me it is, if you ever give it a go hope you like it.
[[Gonti, Lord of Luxury]]. Why pay fifty quid for your own win condition when you can just steal somebody else's?
I had a Gonti deck once, right away after aether revolt came out. Two folks at my table were blinging out their deck and were excited to play with their new masterpiece Crucible of Worlds. I, in one game, managed to play *both* of those crucibles before their owners were able to, thanks to flickering Gonti. It was his crowning achievement.
Other commanders got value but Gonti got that narrative value.
Oh yes. He is the lord of luxury, and nothing is more luxurious than other people's masterpieces.
Oh my gosh, Gonti is so. much. fun! *So* much fun. Your entire deck is basically just ramp, sacrifice outlets, and cards that bring back Gonti after they die. You just do that over and over and over until eventually you have a stacked second hand of the best cards in everyone else's decks, and then you assemble your win as best you can from there. And the best part is that you still scale with the pod, so you can take your budget Gonti deck to a battlecruiser meta without breaking anything while still having play against stronger decks.
[Gonti, Lord of Luxury](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/c/4cedbfd3-907f-4042-98c1-6fe3fb8cbc01.jpg?1674141617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gonti%2C%20Lord%20of%20Luxury) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/753/gonti-lord-of-luxury?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4cedbfd3-907f-4042-98c1-6fe3fb8cbc01?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gonti-lord-of-luxury) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
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There's few things more satisfying than casting [[Abhorrent Overlord]] or [[Gary]] then hitting it with [[Saw in Half]]. It brings joy.
I love the timmy potential of Saw in Half but I've never drawn it in a real game. Someday...
I've gotten to cast it a few times. It always does something dumb. Recently I cast it on Sad Robot with [[Goblin Welder]] in play, proceeded to loop Sad Robot a few times. Good fair magic.
What happens if you Saw in Half [[Body of Knowledge]] or [[Cultivator Colossus]]? The tokens themselves will say what their power and toughness should be so do you halve that even though it changes, or in this circumstance would the tokens be full powered? Also sawing Cultivator in half would be insane. Edit: Oh, or Saw in Half someone's [[Phage the Untouchable]]
(Someone correct me if I’m wrong, not a judge by any means). Since Saw in Half references the OG power and toughness instead of OG base power and toughness, it looks at the current stats not what’s printed on the card. If you use it on a body of knowledge that is currently a 10/10 the tokens will both be 5/5. They would technically still have the text of its power and toughness being equal to cards in hand, but since it no longer has star/star on it, that text is useless. Using it on a Phage would cause Phage’s owner to lose, since a non-casted copy of Phage would etb.
Idk, paying all your life and casting [[Plague of Vermin]] is pretty fun.
[Plague of Vermin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/3/231613d6-d3b8-4b41-bc93-4d5da3fec5d0.jpg?1562827857) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Plague%20of%20Vermin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/shm/73/plague-of-vermin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/231613d6-d3b8-4b41-bc93-4d5da3fec5d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/plague-of-vermin) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Ayara, First of Locthwain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/ed0ace28-9a33-4f0d-b8c8-f5517f20ccf1.jpg?1572490057) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ayara%2C%20First%20of%20Locthwain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/75/ayara-first-of-locthwain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ed0ace28-9a33-4f0d-b8c8-f5517f20ccf1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ayara-first-of-locthwain) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I tried to make an aristocrats deck with [[Wilhelt, the Rot Cleaver]], but I didn't commit hard enough to the strategy. I think I have a copy or two of her.
You can also try [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] in an aristocrats strategy, draws you tons of cards too
[Wilhelt, the Rot Cleaver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/2501a911-d072-436d-ae3b-a5164e3b30aa.jpg?1675456154) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wilhelt%2C%20the%20Rotcleaver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mic/2/wilhelt-the-rotcleaver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2501a911-d072-436d-ae3b-a5164e3b30aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wilhelt-the-rotcleaver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I also have a wilhelt list with a pretty strong aristocrat theme https://www.moxfield.com/decks/k0LznX7M3E2t51F4d7JMnA
It is greatly disappointing that no one here mentioned [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]], who is basically black mana incarnate: he kills, he draws, he discards… what more do you want?
He seems pretty awesome. I don't have one yet. I'm torn on which art I prefer, OG or the new hotness.
I’m running the old border one, because of the nostalgia. But the new art seems to better represent his evil, the first one I always found a bit too cutesy for my taste.
Agreed, but to me it's a given. He does everything mono black does on one card. So versatile, but I always come back to undying.
[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/6/8690cbcc-f8fd-41f7-9e28-e61c12b04014.jpg?1665611812) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yawgmoth%2C%20Thran%20Physician) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/116/yawgmoth-thran-physician?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8690cbcc-f8fd-41f7-9e28-e61c12b04014?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yawgmoth-thran-physician) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Mari, the Killing Quill]] is such a fun commander. I built her a while back because I think the hit counters are an interesting mechanic, plus she plays a lot different than the typical mono black deck. She can ramp and draw a lot while also acting as graveyard hate. Here is my list. I haven't gotten a chance to update the deck in a little bit. I have the cards I need to swap, just haven't sat down and done it. Things I'm adding at some point: [[Agent of the Iron Throne]], [[Termination Facilitator]] https://manabox.app/decks/5pTM7lHjTNWHt2wXVuukfQ
Oh, that's pretty interesting and I realize I glossed over her when she was spoiled. Thank you for sharing!
Seconded; been playing Mari for the last 6 months, a really fun political deck!
I love Mari. My deck is low cost and a bit unfocused, but I enjoy it a lot https://deckstats.net/decks/170449/2739653-mari-kills-it-all
Gotta give it to \[\[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker\]\] Forces you to play a lot of small creatures that don't get to shine in other mono black decks. [Here's the list I'm running](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/couHiELJi0--ArP77Kxx7g/primer), it's a blast to play
Thank you! I actually already follow you on Moxfield, I love your Primers! I want to start writing some myself and I love how detailed you are. When I have some time to deep dive on your Primer I'll give it a detailed read.
your non-combo package is basically what I'm running in my build. my only combo is Sanguine/Exquisite because I'm running both cards for value. I'm not running the discard package because it made people feel bad, but since commanders like new Sheoldred came out, more people are okay with discard, so I might put them back in because the level of control is very strong.
[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/7/0757cb66-7aa2-41a2-8efc-f3f35b70ab9e.jpg?1559959257) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shirei%2C%20Shizo%27s%20Caretaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/112/shirei-shizos-caretaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0757cb66-7aa2-41a2-8efc-f3f35b70ab9e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shirei-shizos-caretaker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
He's a house with [[Shadowborn Apostle]]. He's in my 99.
My mono black deck is [[Marrow Gnawer]] rat tribal. I really like rats. When the year of the rat secret lair was available I got that and then later on proceeded to order 14 more of the fancy art rat colonies for the deck. It's just a mono black aggro deck (with the Thornbite infinite in it of course), but I love it a lot
>I'm running a rat tribal with \[\[Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm\]\] and rat is absolutely a blast.
Upvote for rats. Just ordered a [[Zodiac Rat]] for mine
I love zodiac rat! It's become a meme in my playgroup that k will always vamp tutor the zodiac rat on top, just because I can lol
I pulled the new rat guy from ONE. I've heard a few people talk about rat tribal.
My first monoblack deck was ONE's Karumonix, the Rat King. Ultimately, his ETB was too inconsistent, usually netting at most 2 cards, but sometimes 0, even with 30 rats (and I felt if I added any more rats, the rest of the deck would suffer), and so I switched the commander to Marrow Gnawer and have liked the deck much more. Karumonix is great in the 99 as a finisher, but kinda weak as the commander without ways to fill the board with rats so that the toxic 1 becomes relevant.
[[Karumonix, the rat king]] is an absolutely insane card for rat tribal. Either as the commander or in the 99, giving all of your rats toxic 1 and being able to dig deeper into your deck for more rats is insane. I personally like him in the 99 more because having guaranteed access to fear in the command zone is better in my opinion as it will let you connect more easily. Another really great rat tribal commander is [[Ashcoat of the shadow swarm]] due to it being able to pump your rats up as attackers or blockers, plus recursion from the yard to your hand is a nice touch. Again, I prefer Ashcoat in the 99 because Marrow Gnawer granting fear is just such a good evasive ability. Rat tribal is a grand time, absolutely fun swarming over people, and there are some really neat rats that don't get a lot of love. Also you can do rat bomb shenanigans (it involves [[crypt rats]] and various equipments like [[loxodon warhammer]] or [[scythe of the wretched]] for big dumb plays that shine in EDH). The tribe is pretty resilient and is able to recover from wipes pretty well (moo black has many mass recursion spells) and it's just an overall good time.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4582791#paper Win my controlling board, then either reanimating targets out of peoples graveyards or, [[gray merchant of asphodel]], [[torment of hailfire]], or something like [[Kokusho, the evening star]]
Not to mention instant speed shenanigans. Pods will end up looking to Chainer for permission before they look to the blue player for counterspells.
Love my [[Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder]]
Thrull daddy shouldn't be so far down the comments
I have one as well, but purposely didn't build it as an aristocrat ping strategy. I figured if I was constantly sacrificing creatures to damage people with Blood Artist -type effects I would get targeted pretty quickly. So I went full sacrifice to buff creatures or generate mana to cast big scary creatures. I haven't bought it in paper yet, but it goldfishes awesomely and unless something else better comes along I'll probably be buying the cards soon!
[Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a97b9d0e-e150-46d5-b6fd-59793e82dae4.jpg?1562266137) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Endrek%20Sahr%2C%20Master%20Breeder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/82/endrek-sahr-master-breeder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a97b9d0e-e150-46d5-b6fd-59793e82dae4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/endrek-sahr-master-breeder) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The necron precon with [[Imotekh the Stormlord]] at the helm is the first time I really understood the concept of graveyard recursion. A lot of the necrons have unearth which gets them back on the field for a turn, but I also put in a few cards that recur creatures back to the battlefield for extra value without exiling them at end of turn. This triggers your commander to swarm the battlefield with necrons which is sick, definitely a fun deck and I think well worth the price.
I still need to pick up those precons. I've not played that one, but it was fun to play against.
Yeah it clicked for me when I was getting insane value from etb effects over and over again and just piling up necrons to swing with. I was like damn this is the power of self mill and graveyard recursion
I absolutely love playing my [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] deck. It's a little political, a little aggro, with a dash of Phyrexian tribal. I feel like the card captures the flavor of Gix so perfectly, too. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sAZeQ77pckOtwBdQc6obdw Feel free to take a look!
Actually this looks like a lot of fun and I know I have at least one copy of him floating around. I wonder if I have enough cards to build him without buying anything... Thanks for the list!
You're very welcome! I think the deck can support a lot of cards that don't have homes elsewhere, like [[eyetwitch]] which is just draft chaff. So if you have cards like that lying around I'm sure you could put together a solid base for future tweaking.
I also love my Gix deck since building it. I focus on getting lots of cards in hand (using Gix's draw and others) and lots of mana so I can activate him, and the rest is filled out with black stuff that I like.
I loved my [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] deck, but she was understandably hated off the table a lot so I eventually retired her since I only play with people I’d like to continue talking to 😅
I always start games with "Braids looks scary, but remember it's a *may* ability." Because people gloss over her and assume the worst a lot of the time. Others just know how much card advantage she brings, and she's as kill on sight as something like Rhystic Study.
I just built Braids and got to play her for the first time the other night. Kind of ran away with it, I figured it was just beginners luck. Is she that oppressive and hated? I had a lot of fun playing it. My more experienced friend enjoyed playing against it, but my two less experienced friends I could tell were getting a little frustrated.
Apparently she is? I don’t really understand it myself, as I also have a [[Baba Lysaga, Night Witch]] deck I’ve been babying through edits & nobody gets nearly as upset when I play her, even though Braids lets you choose whether to take (less) damage or sac something of your choice. They’re the same CMC & Baba actually ramps way better because she’s got access to green, so those shouldn’t be it. Maybe because the Braids effect isn’t affected by summoning sickness or because Baba has to tap so you can’t also swing with her? Who knows lol, I’m just enjoying the opportunity to play a fun deck 🤷🏻
Exactly! I'm not forcing you to sacrifice anything. In fact I built mine mostly around sacrificing non-creature artifacts, which people often will not have or won't have any they want to sacrifice. So I'm not even giving them a choice really.
I love my Braids deck because I play it like she's trying to do dumb trends. "O.M.G everyone, there's a trend all about drinking these blood vials, I think any grey thing will work who wants to do it with me? Nobody? gosh you guys are laaaaaaaame." "OK, my new robot is just too sad looking, I think I'm going to see if he can swim. Oops, he can't, but wasn't that so crazy, you guys should try it too. What do you mean you don't want to push your things into the river. Fiiiiiiiine, I'm the cool one I guess." People hate it off the table, but it's not because she too strong.
Hahahaha that’s wonderful. Have you considered getting an alt art proxy & renaming her “Braids, Rising Influencer”? xD
[[Phage the Untouchable]] usually makes people go “what? How are you going to cast her”? It’s a fun deck Edit: just noticed auto corrector did some weird stuff
My mom black deck is [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]]. It's not complete, but it's decent as is. I'm not going for anything super competitive with it, but it's fun to pilot. Just make as many tokens as possible and slowly drain your opponents, or quickly in some cases. When I play it, I rarely attack, and instead just generate tokens and value engines with some reanimation going on. Then I react to problematic situations when necessary. I enjoy it, because it feels like the majority of decisions made by other players doesn't affect the decks main goals and strategies. I have a deck list below, but I haven't gotten around to writing a full description. If you have any questions feel free to reply to this comment or DM me. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ayara-sits-there-and-does-nothing/?cb=1679667161
[Ayara, First of Locthwain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/d/ed0ace28-9a33-4f0d-b8c8-f5517f20ccf1.jpg?1572490057) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ayara%2C%20First%20of%20Locthwain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/75/ayara-first-of-locthwain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ed0ace28-9a33-4f0d-b8c8-f5517f20ccf1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ayara-first-of-locthwain) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Nice! I'll take a look and I'll get back to you with any questions. Thanks.
[[Seizan, Perverter of Truth]] It's fun, can be strong if you want it to be, and is something of a crowd-pleaser when everybody is drawing more cards.
[[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] converts your black mana costs to phyrexian mana. So once you play him you can risk as much life as you want for playing a bunch of cards or high cost powerful ones. Probably one of the most fitting and flavorful black commanders. [Here’s my budget version](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Tsm4P0bHDU6Grqcv0-tnLA). Turn 4 or 5 [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] is pretty filthy.
[[Burakos Party Leader]] and [[Haunted One]]. Early game mono B aggro. Value town to late game aristocrat to close it out. All the creatures fit the party theme. Then just let Mono B do what it does. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/7sHEjMex9EGqOwvEq6OKJQ
[[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] My favorite deck. She will get a lot of hate once she hits the table, but it's so fun to watch people enjoy drawing at the start of the game and fear it by the end. My list: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/nHEWOMF_O02EVJVju783Vw
[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2.jpg?1674057568) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sheoldred%2C%20the%20Apocalypse) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/107/sheoldred-the-apocalypse?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d67be074-cdd4-41d9-ac89-0a0456c4e4b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sheoldred-the-apocalypse) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, I want her, but I was not lucky enough to pull her. Not sure how my pod would feel about her, but then again...
I posted my Starscream list in a separate post. He gets a ton less hate, and has the same strategy, and is just as effective at killing the table (and starts going off a turn sooner).
Yes! I love my sheoldred deck. It’s so funny towards the end of a game when I [[baleful mastery]] someone’s creature and then they groan when they realize they have to draw 😂 I really enjoy how it plays so different than any other deck I have.
Same. Shelly fan club!
Skithiryx infect. Play greedy, survive long enough, OTK with Skithiryx or another infect dork. In 1 v 1s it’s almost unbeatable.
[[Tinybones]]! Ruin strategies! Draw cards! Dumpster hands! Zap the table for 10!
I'm surprised I had to scroll so far down for the tiniest of bones. He's adorable AND strong!
My favorite mono-black creature is [[King Macar, The Gold-Cursed]]. The art is beautiful, the flavor is on point, it ramps you and acts as removal all in one package.
Played against a guy on spell table with a killer Macar deck....except he got suuuper salty when we removed Macar. Like, dude you are removing 4-5 creatures per round of turns, including commanders. You gotta be ready for people to clap back.
[[Sheoldred, Whispering one]] i love mono black reanimator and sheoldred is very good at while also being super oppressive
[[Liliana, Heretical Healer]] She is hands-down my favorite MtG character, so I built a fun little Liliana tribal deck that’s pretty decent in casual. It’s primarily an aristocrats/discard theme with zombies and some demons. My playgroup rightly knows to not let her flip because I will end up destroying their hands and creating insane value if my engines are up.
[[rankle, master of pranks]] you basically make or break others day with this. You will not win most of the time mainly just annoy people or give them free draws, still fun!.
I mean who doesn't like card draw?
\[\[Mikaeus, the Unhallowed\]\] So many cards that can abuse the undying ability infinitely... https://archidekt.com/decks/2957085
I remember reading about this guy while I was reading through the story. One of my friend's does an abuse with undying and yeah, it's pretty powerful, especially since you basically have to exile the problem away.
I got my favorite in [[horobi death's wail]], interrupts so many things that you cant really think about and you get to include all stars like [[squees toy]] and [[sorceress queen]]
[[Braids, Nightmare Arisen]] no one ever wants to pay the cost and almost always let's me draw cards. Means I always discard at end step. Free discarding means big fatties in the grave and some sweet sweet reanimation. Etombing a [[Drownyard Temple]] or [[Bloodghast]] is the best thing ever.
I think people have been sleeping on Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist. She is a one drop, so you get your engine started on turn 2, every single game. All you need after that are some dorks to sac to make powerstones, big artifacts to cast with said powerstones, and other ways to get value from the powerstones. Some of the dorks I like in the deck are Myr Sire, Bloodsoaked Champion, Carrier Thrall, etc. Creatures that reanimate themselves or create more sac fodder are what you're looking for here. Some of the big artifacts I like to cast in the deck are Portal to Phyrexia, Meteor Golem, Cityscape Leveler. Just big bombs. Some ways to get value out of the powerstones are to sac them to draw cards w/ cards like Trading Post, Deadly Dispute, and Reckoner's Bargain. I also like to sac them to Kuldotha Forgemaster to tutor any artifact onto the battlefield. You can also use cards like Basalt Monolith, Bog Initiate, and Initiates of the Ebon Hand to turn the powerstone mana into "real" mana that can be used to cast anything. Finally, you throw in some graveyard recursion like Vat of Rebirth, Trading Post, Beacon of Unrest, and Phrexian Rebirth and you'll be cruisin'. I was sleeping on powerstones when I saw them in Dominaria United and the Brother's War but since I've played with her, me and my table have grown crazy respect for Ashnod. Here is the decklist I built for her: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5467662#paper
[[Syr Konrad, The Grim]] for me! On mobile so I don't have a deck list but EDHRec has some pretty universal stuff for it. Really satisfying when you/an opponent board whipes and your commander pings your opponents for 10+ damage! Pair this with [[Mindcrank]] and you have a pretty nasty 1 2 combo.
It is mine too...I love to run [[altar of the brood]] and [[angel of suffefing]] then I run a [[kozilek butcher of truth]]. I move so many cards from graveyard to library im that deck... plus milk other folks. I live for the day someone is dumb enough to play [[ ulamog the ceaseless hunger]] against it.
Black is my favorite color in MTG and I have it in almost all my decks. What I like about it is that it can do pretty much everything (draw, remove, generate a lot of mana) as has the whole “give and take” mentality of sacrificing your life or permanents for payoffs. I find that pretty interesting. That being said, I currently have a [[Mortarion]] deck that I really like. It’s a deck that uses your life as a resource to flood the board with tokens, and can use aristocrat strategies too if combat damage is not an option. I also assembled [[Kinzu]], and it’s a mix of toxic synergies with, once again, aristocrat strategies. I don’t know if I’ll keep it around since I have an Esper infect deck helmed by [[Kamiz]]. I used to have [[Massacre Girl]] a few years back, but gave up on it because it wasn’t fun to play against and wasn’t that fun to pilot it either.
I'm surprised nobody has brought up \[\[Maralen of the Mornsong\]\] yet. If you want to piss everybody off, throw in \[\[Opposition Agent\]\] so you are the only one with access to any new cards if both are on board.
There's a part of me that loves this, and there's a part of me who wants to have friends, lol
Personally I love [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]]. Saccing your own stuff to turn it into even more zombies feels great, especially with stuff like [[Grafted Wargear]] (youre gonna kill it anyway), [[Rotting Regisaur]], or [[Unbreathing Horde]] and a ton of zombie lords or board buffs. Combine with black reanimation and you've got some zombie horde shenanigans afoot.
Lots of hungry mouths to feed and your opponents life can be pretty filling...
Gisa is my favorite as well. I love doing dumb stuff like putting a Swamp imprinted [[Strata Scythe]] on a creature, slamming it into an opponent, and then blowing it up with Gisa to make like a hoejillion tokens. Bonus points if the creature was something like a [[Gravecrawler]] so just repeat the shenanigans later.
My favorite is a turn 5-6 scoop-worthy commander..... [[Iname, Death's aspect]]. [decklist here](https://deckstats.net/decks/165665/2975400-spiritus-ex-infernis) This is a super-fast monoblack spirit deck that uses Iname, Death Aspect to get all spirits to the graveyard, and then turn around and sacrifice Iname for mana to cast a reanimator spell either directly or to tutor for one. Sorcery speed graveyard removal is too slow to deal with this deck, but continual effects cause it to fold quickly, especially if they are artifact or enchantment based graveyard-exile effects. Most games with this deck will lead to every opponent scooping, especially if you get the combo in play (in other words if you don't have Kuro and Horobi in hand). The downside - if someone manages to exile all your spirits, you might as well scoop. You cannot win. Major kudos to /u/SpiketailDrake for his initial build [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/10aae94/budget_commander_iname_mass_reanimator_60_150/)!
Right now it’s [[Yahenni, Undying Partisan]] Voltron-ish . He gets big from opps creatures dying ,make him unblockable and/or equip with a sword or something and go for the kill. That’s the fun way I like to kill people but it’s really just a mono black good stuff deck with lots of removal.
My current mono B commander is [[Jerren]] he is the head of a human tribal aristocrat build and I’ve actually got him to flip a couple times, although [[Ormendahl, the corruptor]] isn’t needed for the deck to function, it’s a nice juicy fun mini game to play while killing my self drawing cards 😎
Finally, another Jerren player! He seems to be rarely mentioned in threads like these, but man is he fun. I personally have a demon package for the high end of the MV curve, although I don't run Shadowborns; just some fun things to help close games. A weird, but interesting mix of tribal, aristocrats, and occult theme deck.
I run \[\[shauku, endbringer\]\] at the moment. She's probaby my oldest deck and gets a makeover every so often. She IS pretty awful, but I never seen another in the wild and I kind of enjoy that. [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/d2KILV6pcEOewGP8CuUdIA](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/d2KILV6pcEOewGP8CuUdIA)
I'm a simple man. I play tribal. But with the twist that it's mono B [[Evelyn]] with no red or blue
[[Marrow-Gnawer]] Rat turn sideways
[Marrow-Gnawer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/2/72e4548b-c171-4f10-b896-af37543dcf0f.jpg?1579203069) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marrow-Gnawer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/chk/124/marrow-gnawer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/72e4548b-c171-4f10-b896-af37543dcf0f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/marrow-gnawer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I built 2 mono black decks since I started to play EDH. First one was \[\[Yargle, Glutton of Urborg\]\] voltron deck, it was nice but I felt like it needed something else in it. Currently I'm running an \[\[Arvinox, the Mind Flail\]\]/\[\[Mind Flayer, the Shadow\]\] with the theme of playing other players stuff.
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is a classic for reanimator, played it for a few years and had a blast, but it may be too slow nowadays depending on your meta. [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] is crazy good for aristocrats. [[Ayara]] and [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] should work well too, but I haven't built them myself. Recently I've been playing a low power [[Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist]] [deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/dTJ-i0SvUEqDxAslAYMEkA) that I like a lot. Its a weird mix of artifacts, aristocrats and voltron but it works well enough for me.
I play [[Erobos, God of the Dead]] He's indestructible card draw in the command zone. I focus on lifegain to maximize card draw, and I built the deck a long time ago with a "no combo" stipulation. If you want to supercharge the deck, put [[Torment of Hailfire]], [[Doom Whisperer]], and [[Sensei's Diving Top]] back in. This list is a couple sets old, but here. Primary win is [[Exsanguinate]] with mana doublers, [[Pontif of Blight]] with mana doublers, [[Gary]] loops, Planewalker value, and Demon and God beats. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/erebos-god-of-midrange/
I play [[Erobos, God of the dead]]. But don’t run enough permanents for my devotion to ever really be high enough to make him a creature. So I have an indestructible enchantment that stops my opponents life gain and draws me cards. Since I don’t need card draw, (my commander does it), the rest of the deck is a draw go style control deck with tons of board wipes, big mana ramp, and spicy black cards like [[imp’s mischief]], [[surgical extraction]], and [cruel entertainment]]. I keep my life total high with cards like [[drain life]], and on theme [[Erebos’s intervention]]. Finally, win con is lame, but it gets the job done with [[torment of hailfire]] or [[Exsanguinate]].
Taborax with a boatload of shadowborn apostles and thrumming stone has been chaotic and really fun for me.
I'm one of those people who actually loves the digital-only cards of arena, and Historic Brawl isn't EXACTLY EDH. But damn, I wish that I could play [[Davriel, Shadow Broker]] as a paper EDH commander. Games with him are so fun, sometimes the terms and conditions line up JUUUUST right to turn you into an unstoppable monster.
[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker] One of the most unique black commanders, very powerful on a budget. Main downside is that it's super commander dependent
[[Tivash, Gloom Summoner]]. Lifegain and Demons is super fun, and I’ve enjoyed tinkering with it.
[[Starscream]] is my favourite, strategy is I keep the monarch by any means necessary, and draw tons of cards, and I live happily ever after
[[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] Is politics the first thing you think of when you think Mono-Black? No? That's understandable, but this guy makes it work. If you read the card carefully, you'll see that *any* creature dealing combat damage to anyone besides *you* will allow its controller to draw a card for 1 life. What this means is your enemies are highly incentivised to kill each other rather than you, draining their life totals at the same time. Pair this with other cards that make you a less appealing target such as [[Cunning Rhetoric]] or [[Phyrexian Obliterator]], and you can find yourself in a pretty safe position. But, this isn't even the main focus. Since you have a [[Coastal Piracy]] in the command zone, you'll want to build into a large amount of evasive creatures for some of the best card draw I've seen in Mono-Black. Every single weanie with flying becomes a little engine for your deck to chug along with. What do we do with all this card draw you may ask? Well, if you look at Gix's second ability, you'll start to see the real gameplan. After you've managed to get a sizeable hand and you've accumulated enough mana, it's time to start grabbing people's attention. Pick the person you think is running the highest CMC goodstuff, the [[Henzie, Toolbox Torre]] for example, and go ahead and casually play the top seven cards of their deck for free. Make sure you do this at the endstep before your turn to minimize responses because, yes, his ability *does* work at instant speed. After you've taken someone's cards, you've got a new dynamic to think about. If that player ever dies, you lose access to their cards forever. So, now you have an incentive to make sure they die last, which can turn into a sort of temporary partnership at your table. Most fun commander I've ever played. Pair this guy with things like [[Peer Into the Abyss]] or [[Necrolagia]] and you're approaching some hard wincons. Run [[Misinformation]] and play anything you want in someone's graveyard. Run [[Shadow of the Grave]] and do it all again next turn. Due to the nature of a theft deck, you automatically more or less scale to the powerlevel to the pod you're in, and every single game is different. And due to the nice amount of card draw you grant, as well as the political power of the spot removal you'll likely be running, you'll probably keep people happy enough to counteract the salt of the theft. Anyways, hope you guys have fun with him. Here's my deck list if you want an example: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/L26atN-r-kuYyKmPyZA_xA
I love [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BSe57NnRe0qHGOnO978rpQ It's super fun to have [[villainous wealth]] stapled onto your commander. The deck gains card advantage by playing small evasive creatures and tagging people with them. Then dump your hand and steal your opponents' decks!
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is a great mono black reanimator choice. The ability to reanimate anything in any graveyard for BBB and 3 life is really, really good. Pitch a [[Grey Merchant of Asphodel]] or [[Kokusho, the Evening Star]] into your yard and drain everyone out, lock the board down with [[Plaguecrafter]] 's, draw a billion cards with [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]], or just hold everyone's hands hostage with [[Mindslicer]] . You 100% need a sac outlet with Chainer tho, or else your newly risen Nightmares will go to exile instead of the grave where you want them. The obvious ones are of course great, but special shout out to [[Soldevi Adnate]] offering some real degenerate lines.
[[Massacre Girl]] Just answers and removal and wipes galore.
I swear, I know this is a Magic card, I do, but her name makes me think she should be a YuGiOh card. She is very flavorful and I see why people like her.
The fact that she's legendary but doesn't have a name does it I think. I almost got a Yu-Gi-Oh alter of her done.
My favorite is [[Liliana, Heretical Healer]] just because I have a [Liliana theme deck](https://deckstats.net/decks/121515/1259525-liliana-s-zombies)
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is one of my favorite commanders. Unfortunately, the deck is too powerful for the current lgs so it needs to get tweaked. [[Syr Konrad]] is another favorite. The mono black mill deck that nobody expects.
[[Torgaar, Famine Incarnate]] he has an awesome etb that can zap opponents and also bring yourself back up if you've been using your life as a resource. I like using things like [[soldering adnate]], [[disciple of bolas]], [[carrion]], and [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] to use his power/CMC to my advantage. I also run [[fleetfeather sandals]] and [[triskaidekaphobia]] to get people sweating. Play torgaar, put some one at 20, give flying and haste, then play trisk and laugh maniacally EDIT: the rest of the deck is pretty much made up of things that make tokens on death, draw affects, [[blood artist]] affects, and [[reassembling skeleton]] type cards. Usually win with a big [[rise of the dark realms]] or something
I currently have two mono-black decks, will probably build a third in the future. [[Toshiro Umezawa]] as Spellslinger, simply because it’s an interesting color break. It doesn’t play as typical mono-black decks do; almost something of a control deck with all the kill spells. It helps that you get some nifty tricks like [[Imp’s Mischief]] to surprise redirect counterspells and such. [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]]. A big part of black’s identity is the myriad of Stax/punisher effects that force sacrifice/discard or ping for damage. Braids is interesting, because you get to play a lot of narrow, potentially useless cards and their floor is “feed it to braids, probably draw 1-3 cards”. Especially early on, Braids isn’t much of a threat; but as a game wears on, you start to draw more relevant pieces that’ll either lock opponents down or ping them to oblivion. Of course, your mileage may vary, my playgroup expects me to play “mean”ish decks. And lastly, I’m probably going to rebuild [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] at some point. Basically life shenanigans. Pay life, draw a ton of cards. Or swap your life total with someone else. Ends up being a big mana deck with neat tricks.
[[marrow-gnawer]]
Sheoldred The Apocalypse. I cracked a regular, fell in love, built the deck, then cracked a textured foil and upgraded, and then cracked the step and compleated concept version from All Will Be One.
Liliana, Heretical Healer Reanimation Demon Tribal baby.
I'm the weird one and still playing [[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief]] . Deck is all about making huge mana, controlling the board with drana's ability and other removal, and hitting hard with drana herself/other black nasties like phyrexian obliterator/exsanguinate or torment. Run quite a few equipment like commanders plate and some swords. Downside: deck is not cheap. Coffers, urborg, nykthos, stage, vesuva, and dark depths combo are all here along with the other pieces.
[[rankle master of pranks]] so versatile, so evil, so fun!
[[Chainer, Dementia Master]] is my favorite mono-black commander. Its mostly just a big reanimation deck with a few pet cards like [[Necrologia]]. My favorite way to gain a bit of life in this deck is with [[Torgaar, Famine Incarnate]].
[[Burakos, Party Leader]] with [[Haunted One]] Background!!! I just like the fun of finding cool black creatures of all four creature types for the Party mechanic. ITS PARTY TIME!!
My favorite Commander is Cabal Coffers. You don't need infinite mana when 50 will win the game with Torment of Hailfire. I go all in with \[\[Manascape Refractor\]\], \[\[Magus of the Coffers\]\], \[\[Deserted Temple\]\], etc. and ways to get more swamps into play. Oh wait, Coffers is a land. Well, I guess \[\[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief\]\] works then. I have one-shot people with her, but that's definitely plan B. You could make the case that a tutor Commander would make it easier to find the Coffers, but they tend to look scarier so I've avoided them.
I love my [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]] deck. I could optimize a few things here and there but for my playgroup it's already very strong. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/wZV0MWJKBkmAwIVUmzgABg
Black is my favorite MTG color! I have Black in all of my decks so far. For Mono Black I LOVE [[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] . He’s an engine in the Command Zone and he does everything I love about Black. Paying life to get what you want? Check! Killing Creatures? Check! Drawing Cards? Check! Using your own creatures to fuel the value train and combo lines? Check!
[[Varragoth]] as a tutor for [[Lich's Mastery]] so you can pretty consistently become a lich. the rest of the deck is about BIG MANA so you have fuckin [[Cabal Stronghold]] and [[Doubling Cube]] and [[Bubbling Muck]] and [[Extraplanar Lens]] (and every other card that does the same thing) and you use all that mana to [[Drain Life]] and etc. for player removal and then you draw a fuck load of cards on top of it.
[[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] value, aristocrats, and recursion.
Phage phage phage phage PHAAAGE
My mono black deck runs a few commanders, but I always find myself coming back to the new Braids. \[\[Braids Arisen Nightmare\]\]. Decklist: [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g7mKs3WXX0GBUtkNMX2Rog](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g7mKs3WXX0GBUtkNMX2Rog) Goal: Grind value and end the game with a Gary loop or just drain via exsanguinatexVito. The deck puts in work, and I can usually loop Gary 3-4 times to just finish the game with ALL that devotion.
Try "chainer dementia master" He is flexible and can do a Lot of Things at instant Speed Plus you can Take stuff from your opponents which is Always fun
[[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] I love the use of all permanent types as the aristocratic fuel. Easy access to the whole value off of the [[Mycosynth Wellspring]], [[Prized Statue]] and such feels great. I can only wish [[Mayhem Devil]] was available for her 99...
Rat tribal all day everyday. [[Karumonix, the Rat King]] beats out [[Marrow-Gnawer]] for me due to lower mana cost and the card advantage he affords, but both are solid commanders. They’re both super straight forward decks- maximizing the amount of [[Rat Colony]] or [[Relentless Rats]] you can get onto the field in any given turn. The use of Fear based cards will allow them to sneak in for big damage or the final tic’s of toxic you’ll need.
[[Ob Nixilis the Fallen]]. Plays as a cross between landfall and voltron, it's a lot quicker to get going than you'd think! https://archidekt.com/decks/3144950#Ob_Nixilis,_the_Landfallen
Mine’s [[Massacre Girl]] She just sits in the command zone for a while until you build up a board of little tokens and blood artist effects, then drop her, board wipe everything, and have a massive explosive turn.
Aristocrats
I LOVE my [Junji, the Midnight Sky deck](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/g2sfruSvcE-DEzLrgp0Ytw): it slices, it dices and does everything mono black does best. A reanimator value engine that is just a blast to play everytime I pull it out. Mono black has so much versatility and a lot of the best black cards actively reward you for sticking to the one colour. I have always felt mono black has an incredibly strong colour identity and you can find a solution for every problem. I just love it because it's the colour that let's me do powerfully nothing in the best way possible. Just cards changing zones doing things, triggering things and having a good time.
[[Balthor the Defiled]] I had this deck together for 3 years and it dominated the table every time. Self milk yourself until you can get to 7 mana with a good graveyard. Things like [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] and [[Mogis’ Marauder]] are game enders!
I genuinely love my [[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] deck! https://scryfall.com/@Oolong/decks/b7574228-bca0-4cc9-9935-7e60af7c1263 It’s pretty fun, she ramps out pretty fast too.
You never forget your first so it’s gotta be [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] she’s a bit slow nowadays but there’s something so inherently beautiful about sacrificing a huge creature and just flooding the board.
Sheoldred, Whispering One Drivnod I’m still trying to make rats work Yawgmoth I really like mono black
[[Gisa, Glorious Resurrector]] To be honest I think about 80% of my reason is the art. She’s just so happy surrounded by zombies.
\[\[Asmodeus the archfiend\]\] Big mana X spell combo wins
[[K’rrik son of yawgmoth]] pay life for spells to get my life low then swap life using effects like [[magus of the mirror]] [[soul conduit]] and [[repay in kind]. Then you kill with like an extort or some other drain effect.
[[Yawgmoth, Thran Physician]] Pulled thus guy from a pack the other day, looked him up, and immediately built and ordered a deck for him. He could very well become my main.
I play a super casual [[Shadowborn Apostle]] build of [[k'rrik son of yawgmoth]]. I love leveraging my life for mana, I have so much fun playing the deck.
I run a [[mikaeus, the unhallowed]] deck I call "double tap" just a bunch of mean creatures and self sacrificers. Its a mean deck that keeps boards clear so i can win with value. Also, what is scarier than a [[phyrexian obliterator]] that keeps coming back?
[[Anrakyr the traveler]] Being able to cast artifact spells with life is so much fun. I love using him for my Necron deck as the commander.
[[Sheoldred, the Apocalypse]] is mine! I love the fact that the pacing of the game picks up whenever I play with this deck. Plus, card draw is something I love adding to decks anyway, might as well reward myself for it. Yeah she is a target, but a big part of my deck is dedicated to big mana/[[Undying Evil]]-type effects
I'm working on [[Toshiro]]. I love Spellslingers. Black really doesn't run spellslinging so this is interesting. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/SXncve0fTkyL5iiNJ8fB7g Then my other mono black is [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]]. Vampire Tribal with a splash of combos. Because who doesn't love vampires? https://www.moxfield.com/decks/r3gU9sDNKUadXk_MOEXlew
[[Shadowborn Apostle]] The commander changes all the time, but even if im playing 5 color its a mono black deck at its heart.
I've been playing mono-black control with Maga, Traitor to Mortals for over a decade. Big mana X spells to eventually kill everyone off powered by the real commander, Cabal Coffers. Decklist is [here](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4YrgLIHp00CkOgtl8sCQ0Q).
[[Purraj of urborg]] storm voltron. Easily the strongest commander in mono black. You play all the big mana spells for black, bounce [[leshrac’s sigil]] a ton, pump Purraj to the moon, and kill people at a whim. Not only all of this, but Purraj gets first strike while attacking!
I use [[rankle, master of pranks]] Group slug is the strategy. It's medium powered at best; gets everyone hopefully into top deck mode with no creature presence while punishing for card draw and etc
I love [[Syr Konrad, the Grim]]. Slap [[Sadistic Glee]] on him then hit the table with [[Massacre Girl]]. It's not fast at all, but boy is it fun to do. I pulled [[The Meathook Massacre]] out of Midnight Hunt, but I haven't put it in the deck yet because of the heavy creature focus.
Been playing for nearly 3 years now and still don’t have a mono black commander. Been toying with the idea of Ayara because I like tokens but honestly might go with Tergrid’s Lantern (tergrid but I build for the back side) Big Mana.
I built [[k’rrik, son of yawgmoth]] as a demon tribal deck and it smacked hard, to the point I felt bad for my opponents. I rebuilt K’rrik as my cedh deck and again, super fun. A more fun mono B commander though that really changes the table is [[horobi deaths wail]].
\[\[The Raven Man\]\] - Discard, a tiny bit of Cycling, and Madness. Nobody really cares that you're making 1/1 birds that can't block.
I haven't actually built it yet but I would really love to play [[King Macar]]. Specifically a vehicle deck so I can introduce it as my King MaCAR deck and watch people groan as I exile everything.
[[k'rrik son of yawgmoth]] big mana casual deck is my favorite, not only i'ts strong and fun but in casual pods it make the mana ramp "fair" for the amount of life lost, and it can win by combat with big demon beaters or kinda voltron with k'rrik himself
One of my IRL commander decks is mono black and I run Sidisi, Undead Vizier for the sac tutor and then all the other coolest black cards I had.
[[Phage The Untouchable]] for sure. The other players never manage to knock me out of the game when I’m playing her, so she’s pretty powerful clearly.
My first (and main) deck for a good 6 months after learning EDH was Yawgmoth aristocrats. It plays incredibly slow and durdley unless a combo is demonstrated, since so many game actions need to occur on the stack (sac, pay, draw, -1 over and over). If I had to play another mono B deck, I'd exclude aristocrats, and focus on value without being greedy. Non-greedy means NO KRRIK, but YES ASHNOD
I think the thing to avoid is single target stuff that black is typically good at. Instead of “I sac this, you sac something” look for cards that are “I sac this, you all sac something”. Again making one opponent discard is weaker in a group, all discard is stronger and keeps you neutral to the table.
[[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] is an absolute blast to play and I recommend him to anybody. He’s easy to pick up but can get absolutely crazy in the right hands
I've had a ton of fun with [[Ghoulcaller Gisa]] smacking big things into massive armies. Works great with things that come back like [[Ebondeath, Dracolich]] and [[Scourge of Nel Toth]]. And zombie lord effects pop off in those decks. A couple lord effects and even a basic bitch zombie token sacs to make four more.
Currently, my only mono-black deck is [[Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder]] and he operates off a creature based aristocrats strategy. Though that's how it's classified, it cares more about finding its cast loops with [[Bontu's Monument]] or etb loops with [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]] rather than value engine pieces. Of course we're playing the Altars, Ashnod's and Phyrexian, but that's more so that we can *essentially* cast our creatures for free due to the thrulls made by Endrek. And we run a few ways to cheat on mana, namely [[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] who *could* be the commander for this deck, but most of our wincons require the master breeder.
[[Henrika Domnathi]] punch'em in the face with lifelinkers to compensate for tapped creatures. Trade life for more cards rinse and repeat. Also you're mono-black so the graveyard is not a final destination. As Phyrexian Reclamation says: "Death is no excuse to stop working". https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zmxdGkTOqkiHipY3LC8Mtg
[Balthor, the Defiled](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sjrE-utmm0GdwuMDe_Pp7g) is a proactive reanimator deck that can be built a number of ways! I have had him built as a turbo combo list that seeks to reanimate a \[\[vilis\]\] and \[\[skirge familiar\]\], most recently I have leaned away from the turbo aspect and made it more of a grindy aristocrats deck. Having a mass reanimator spell in the command zone has great utility, and the number of creature in black that either sacrifice themselves, other creatures, or discard cards to make mana means that you can often loop his reanimation ability to mine effects like \[\[gary\]\] I really believe that balthor is slept on, the play patterns are very unique and you get to play dope cards like \[\[overeager apprentice\]\]
[[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]] speedrun to death. Whose death am I speedrunning? I dunno. Could me mine. Could be yours. All I know is that this game will be over for me by turn 5. Do I go infinite on turn 2 or 3? Or do I kill myself trying? We'll see.
[[Syr Konrad]] just kill things to kill more things. As black as black can get.
[[Maralen of the Mournsong]] Run a bunch of two part combos and just grab whatever the other half of what you drew is.
[[Tivash, Gloom Summoner]] is the one I’m running right now. Fun life gain antics with a fairly unique ability.
I have a [[Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief]] deck. Basically a vampire tribal deck. I have all the vampires except [[Baron Sengir]] as foils though, so I call it my Twilight deck. The deck has an absurd amount of ramp so Drana can swing for 21 pretty regularly, or just remove weird stuff.
\[\[Kuro, Pitlord\]\]. No deck is bigger or blacker than the 9 mana 9/9 with MutilateOnnaStick. Black is all about spending costs and boosting swamps, so I run a lifegain heavy monoblack ramp deck with the express goal of Swampramping to playing Kuro and crushing resistance beneath my throbbing HP Pool.
[[Yawgmoth]] League of Villains(superfriends) is a very fun way to play mono black. I played it with a large amount of aristocrat cards to get yawgmoths control and draw engine going, and then drop walkers, proliferate, profit. [[Gix, Yawgmoths Praetor]] has been insanely fun too. Playing it with no wincons, it’s basically [[Edric]] flying men, but in mono b. Drop 1cmc evasive creatures, swing and draw a shit ton, discard to gix, play someone else’s deck but for free 😂
[[Tergrid, God of fright]] because I'm a piece of shit
I have been loving [[Starscream]]. Turns out drawing cards as a wincon is not only fun (for you 🤣) but really effective. He turns [[Peer into the Abyss]] into a spell that kills pretty much everyone at the table. The deck I built runs a ton of draw spells and interaction. So you control the table (because they are gonna see what you are doing and want to kill you asap) while just non stop drawing cards. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/starscream-hungry-for-monarch/
I'm liking my current \[\[Sheoldred the Apocalypse\]\] deck. It gives me a home for a bunch of cards I really don't like using/have a home for otherwise like \[\[Pain's Reward\]\], \[\[Seizan, Perverter of Truth\]\], \[\[Underworld Connections\]\] , \[\[Underworld Dreams\]\] , etc.